Re today's FP: Is it just me....?

Or are we (collectively, not just satirists) giving the Lib Dems a ton of grief for compromising their principles, while giving the Tories an easy ride for never having any in the first place? And sneering away at the whole concept of politics, which can only ever be to the benefit of the nasty minority on the right wing?

The referendum is a golden opportunity to change the way we vote and lock the Tory scum out forever. Something the last government could have done but was just too complacent about. I urge everyone to stop sniggering for a minute and get out and vote.

Oxbridge, of course, there's no such thing as a nasty minority on the left wing, so they get a free pass.
I find it amazing that rather than achieve political change through debate and persuasion you simply want to disenfranchise 1/3 of the population. Not very democratic, IMHO.

Of course I want to prevent Tories from being in power. I'm a socialist. Same reason they want to keep us out of power. That's politics.

The difference is first that Tories regard elections as an unfortunate obstacle to be cleared on the way to keeping things as they ought to be (vizt. with them in power) and second they are ruthlessly focused on ensuring that the system works to their benefit, hence defending first past the post. Whereas the centre and left just arse about.

Of course there are some nasty lefties, I'm one myself. And plenty of Tory voters are perfectly pleasant people in themselves, it's just that what they support is nasty, selfish and wrong. They are a minority but the current system lets them get their way. If you want that, vote for it. If you don't (and I tend to assume most would-be satirists and comedians are on the left), extract a digit and vote against it.

"The difference is first that Tories regard elections as an unfortunate obstacle to be cleared on the way to keeping things as they ought to be" - some evidence, please.

"they are ruthlessly focused on ensuring that the system works to their benefit, hence defending first past the post" - they're defending a voting system that kept them out of office for 13 years and failed to give them a mandate in 2010, (despite the appalling Brown), and a system that makes it easier to elect a Labour MP than a Tory MP as well; this hardly seems like the act of an anti-democratic party to me.

Ahem. First past the post obviously doesn't guarantee they win, but is clearly the system best placed to deliver it. Thatcher and her successors wrecked this country on the back of four election wins by this means, despite never being genuinely popular and never winning more than 40% of votes cast, never mind votes available.

Surveys consistently find that the number of people who are fully or mostly right-wing in outlook in this country is about 20% of the electorate, give or take. Most of the rest are not only not that way, but strongly anti. The vast majority of Lib Dem supporters prefer Labour.

It is perfectly legitimate to vote in favour of a voting system on the basis that it is more likely to deliver the kind of government you want. That is what the right will do and the centre and left should wise up and do the same. Otherwise, we will keep what we have by default. Kind of like what happened in the '80s.

Despite the rather extreme terms in which is was couched, I basically agree Oxy. I think the coalition is the best thing that has happened in British politics since Neil Kinnock was filmed getting his feet wet on the beach at Blackpool or wherever.

I just hope that the electorate in its infinite wisdom doesn't decide to give the Lib Dems a good kicking on May 5th. This is widely predicted, and I fear could damage the interesting balance we have at the moment.

As for AV I'm all for this. But I'm not looking forward to explaining it to voters at the polling station I'm manning with Mrs Scroat on election day.

Good debate boys and girls, interesting and entertaining ....keep it coming.
Here's my three'happence for what it's worth.
On the whole people agree things had to change. But I hate to think where we would be right now if the Lib/Dems hadn’t been around to act as a counter balance.
Most people are pretty cynical about the stance they have taken since forming the coalition. But just how far do you think the Tories would have gone with the cuts if the Lib/Dems hadn’t been around to say NO to their ruthless plans.
Don’t let the Lib/Dems become the fall guys – they’ll still get my vote.
If your job had been under threat but you have (so far) been spared the agony...then that’s probably down to the Lib/Dems – not the Tories thinking twice about it.

Are Labour socialists then? I thought they just sat there and disagreed with the Tories on general principles, which is the job the Tories had been doing previously. While the lib dems set about getting lots of people to like them while sounding sensible without having to worry about little things like how they were going to pay for everything because they never expected to be in power.

I don't believe a single word any of them say so don't really listen. If you read the BNP party policies they sound quite sensible. But when you factor in them being a bunch of racist psychos it suddenly doesn't sound so good.

I personally have quite a bit of respect for Cameron, Clegg and co because they're making decisions which they know are going to make them unpopular, which suggests they're doing it because they actually believe it's the best thing to do, rather than just trying to win votes.

As far as I'm concerned what politics is mostly about is saying "he's lying, don't believe him, he's lying. Here are some lies which fit better with what you want to hear this week, I'll be back next week with some different lies. So vote for me."

"Otherwise, this is just partisan opinion.
There are no absolutes, especially in politics. Just (partisan) opinions. This is why it's so interesting/infuriating/depressing/etc".
I'm a scientist, so I tend to give opinions more respect when they're supported by evidence, which is why I'm antipathetic to ideologies and ideologues of left and right. I'm also suspicious of vague, ill-defined terminologies like 'socialist' and I'm especially suspicious of anyone who tells me that a large segment of society is 'scum' and wants me to concur with that view.

a) it is in the nature of stable democracies for mainstream political parties to agree on the big issues, for example 1) running a country is bloody complicated and our room for manoeuvre is limited, 2) we agree there should be a safety net for the less-well off, whether through altruism or wishing to avoid Galbraith's nightmare vision, 3) we can't do everything we want 4) we need to engage with the world 5)developing countries should do as we say, not as we did 6)we may benefit ourselves and our supporters through the way we govern, but what separates us from dictatorships is that we shit only slightly on the heads of those who opposed us

b) every country, organisation and company is governed by those who can be bothered

c) it is only the simple parties that come up with simple answers

d) as a scientist, one of the reasons you should be furious with the current government is that they are conducting an experiment in which every variable is changed simultaneously. Whether we're up the creek or steaming along in a few years, who can tell what on earth caused it? How will we learn for the future?

As for 'tory scum', well why not? It's ok to mock the powerful - that's what we do. I've just never managed to do it in an amusing way when genuine annoyance was the driving factor: Harry Enfield was always funnier than Ben Elton.

Was I raising points? I thought I was just whingeing, are you sure you haven't got me confused with somebody else?

Agree with you on struggling to write something amusing when genuinely annoyed. I wrote a bit the other day that came out of being irritated by something but when I re-read it the tone came across so bitter and twisted that I didn't even bother posting it. And I've posted some shite so that's saying something.

Anyway, I'm not really going to get involved in any kind of debate on politics because my arguments are mostly "I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it, I'm too lazy to try and do anything about it"

Well, the absence of evidence is compelling. As for calling Tory voters scum or cnuts, that would include my 87 year-old dad, who served in WW2 so you could have the freedoms you enjoy. Reflect a little, before you throw abuse around.

One of my Grandads (labour voter too) fought in WW2 (on the winning side) and he was, it's fair to say, a bit of a racist - not a massive racist but a bit of one.
So while I will happilly say that people who are a bit racist are still fucking idiots, I feel a bit weird saying that about close family.
A fair number of people who fought in WW2 were a bit racist and these people helped secure our future freedoms.
Its very confusing.

But it might help not to drag WW2 into any of this because it confuses the broad generalisations flying around.

AV can be quite good at getting 2 (or 3) big parties to try and find some common ground, which is a euthamism for saying that the left and right or the parties will be forced to meet more in the political middle than before.
Except for the safer seats where anyone who gets over 50% of the vote can continue being properly left/right wing.

AV with 3 main parties also can work oddly when all 3 parties and their voters dislike one another. That can actually be beneficial to the 4th largest party in some constituencies.
People and companies involved in eletioneering will come out the winners in any AV situation because rather than parties targetting their core vote and swing votes you have to target a lot more voters to secure 2nd place votes, 3rd place votes etc.
The good news for everyone is that this will mean more doorstepping, telephone calls, and so on during campaigns.

AV shouldn't be anyone's 1st choice as a means to elect our moral superiors. But it is different to FPTP and so maybe a change will do us some weird good. It could also be bafflingly funny.

@the coarse whisperer - hmmm... how about a system wherby if less than 50% of the electorate vote in any constituency then they get no representation at all in parliament. That way not voting is actually a vote for no representation.

"But it might help not to drag WW2 into any of this because it confuses the broad generalisations flying around'.
I merely raised the issue to make the point that, if one is trying to persuade people of the rectitude of one's opinions, then name-calling is a poor place to start. The antagonistic and virulent in-group versus out-group nature of British politics is one of the many reasons for the mess we're in, as far as I can see.
I tend to think that if someone holds opinions different from my own, there might be good reason for it. It's intellectually lazy to just write-off other views as evil or stupid. Even the dumbest people sometimes have wise perceptions, and sometimes even the brilliant can be asinine.

Which brings us back to the point behind introducing AV; to try to make politics less partisan. However, holding political predjudices is absolutely fine, unlike judging a person by their skin colour or country of birth, precisely because it's not pre-judging - the facts are known. Quite aside from the affection we feel for individuals who choose to vote conservative (including at various poInts both my parents), they are strongly likely to be either total disciples of the free market (including for solving social problems they care about), or anti-European, or wanting a return to 1950s style paternalism, or country's-gone-to-the-dogs moaners, or people who think they've "done it all themselves" and disregarded the contribution the state made through healthcare, free education etc, or too rich to give a monkeys - any of which can, and should, be argued against.
As for caricature and name-calling, yes it's childish, but context is king. I hope you don't think my neighbourhood is actually full of slappers and idiots?

"Prejudice" should perhaps have been in "inverted commas". I was tying to say that inferring the likely political views of someone who declares a strong party preference is not judging in advance wihout knowledge, or pre-judging, but just judging. The person in question must share plenty of the opinions of their chosen political party, or its leaders, otherwise what does that support mean? And that judgment is limited to how a person thinks the country should be run, nothing else about them. I completely agree with you about prejudice.

Surely the current political situation is a choice between two families.
One says- "Look, we're skint, we have to cancel your violin lessons Jemima, and both you and Nigel will have to take a newspaper round instead of pocket money. No mroe meals out, and we've set a budget for our weekly shop and we're going to ASDA, not Waitrose. Daddy's going to be working late some days, and we're going to have a lodger in the spare room". Mummy and daddy get unpopular with everyone, but the mortgage still gets paid
The other says "Mummy's taken out two new credit cards, and we've booked a weekend in Costa Brava!"